George Jones and Smokey Robinson among award win

[Janice Brooks]

Jones, Robinson Get Medal of Arts

By JENNIFER LOVEN
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Country star George Jones, Motown legend Smokey Robinson and the late show-biz caricaturist Al Hirschfeld are joined by a stage designer, a landscape architect, an acting teacher and others to form this year's crop of National Medal of Arts recipients.

The medals will be presented in a Thursday afternoon Oval Office ceremony with President Bush and first lady Laura Bush, the White House said Wednesday. The award, established by Congress in 1984, honors individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions to the arts in the United States.

Hirschfeld, who died Jan. 20 at the age of 99, captured Broadway performers and their shows in pen-and-ink drawings. He was the theater's artist of record, chronicling its hits and flops from Broadway's Golden Age in the 1930s into the 21st century, most often in the drama pages of The New York Times. Louise Hirschfeld was to accept the award on behalf of her late husband.

Jones, a 71-year-old Tennessee native whose career survived drugs, alcohol abuse, major heart surgery and a near-fatal car crash, is considered by many to be the greatest living country music singer. His bleak breakup songs include ``Why Baby Why,'' ``She Thinks I Still Care'' and ``He Stopped Loving Her Today.''

Robinson's musical career spans more than 40 years. Best known as the front man for the Motown group the Miracles, he was the singer-songwriter behind a string of 1960s pop hits such as ``The Tracks of My Tears'' and ``Second That Emotion.'' He inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

The other medal winners are:

Designer and architect Florence Knoll Bassett.

Trisha Brown, a choreographer, dancer and founder/artistic director of the Trisha Brown Dance Company in New York.

Metropolitan Museum of Art director Philippe de Montebello.

Actress and acting teacher Uta Hagen.

Landscape architect and environmental planner Lawrence Halprin, known for building San Francisco's Ghiradelli Square and Washington's FDR Memorial.

Painter and stage designer Ming Cho Lee.




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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047

[Deana Clark]

That is really cool. Sounds like an award that a person could really be proud of. Go George!